Extra Point Notebook: ECC showdown here

It’s here, and to hear East Duplin, the Panthers are ready for the showdown with Northside for the East Central 2-A Conference title.

Rick Scoppe & Chris Miller-staff sports writers/The Daily News

It’s here, and to hear East Duplin, the Panthers are ready for the showdown with Northside for the East Central 2-A Conference title.

The long-looming clash is just a week away.

On Friday night at 7:30 p.m., the Panthers (9-1, 6-0) travel to Jacksonville to take on the Monarchs (10-0, 6-0) in a battle of top 10 teams. Northside was No. 2 in last week’s Associated Press 2-A poll while East Duplin was No. 8.

And while both teams took care of business Friday night, the specter of this huge clash has loomed large with each passing week.

“We’ve all been thinking about it,” East Duplin senior Brady Pickett said after the Panthers’ 24-6 win over Swansboro on Friday night. “As time goes on closer to the game, word’s been circling around in the locker room talking about, ‘I’m ready for Northside. I’m ready for Northside, ready for payback.’”

Payback won’t be easy for last year’s 41-30 win by the Monarchs, who beat Clinton 34-0 for their fifth shutout of the season. Northside has allowed just 60 points this season, with 21 coming in a 13-point win at 3-A Wilson Fike.

Not that East Duplin is an easy touch.

The Panthers have two shutouts to their credit and have allowed just 107 points, with their only loss a 22-21 defeat at the hands of 1-A James Kenan, which is 9-0 and has outscored its opponents 310 to 65.

But this is the game the Panthers have been pointing to since the beginning of the season if for no other reason then the Monarchs stand in the way of their goal of bringing home the conference championship.

“That’s what we’ve talked,” coach Battle Holley said. “That’s what we’ve talked about all year, having that opportunity to play for the conference championship. We put ourselves in a position to do that and it’s a credit to our guys. We’re going to go down there and play hard and whatever happens, happens.”

After, that is, what should be the best week of practice this season.

“If it’s not, if they can’t get up this week, then they need to do something else,” Holley said. “It’s going to be a good week. Hopefully, it’ll be a good football game on Friday night.”

Important, but …

While Holley and the Panthers want to win the ECC title, the reality is they won’t have a lot of time to reflect on the win because the state playoffs begin one week later on Oct. 26. Lose there and your season is done.

“It’d be nice,” Holley said. “But you play next week and then you’ve got the playoffs. So it’s really short-term. If you win, lose or draw, the following week is what’s going to matter. That’s the big picture. But you always want to win a conference championship and that’s what we’re going down there to do.”

Hurt but will play

Holley said starting middle linebacker Blaze Tanner didn’t play against Swansboro because he broke his wrists in a weight room accident this past week. But Holley said Tanner has already been cleared for this week’s game at Northside, although he’ll have to wear protective padding over his two casts.

Just one more

Southwest will be making its curtain call next week.

When the Stallions visit Pamlico on Friday in the regular-season finale, it will mark the final time — or at least for the next four years — Southwest will be a member of the Coastal Plains 1-A Conference.

Next year Southwest is moving back to 2-A, where the Stallions spent 1997 to 2008.

During their time in the CPC, the Stallions are 19-0 in the league and hope to make it 20 with a win at Pamlico (1-8, 1-3).

“We just got to keep playing like we are,” Southwest coach Phil Padgett said after a 51-6 win at Lejeune. “We don’t want to play to the level or our opponents. I feel in three to four games in a row we have played pretty darn good and I don’t want to take a step backwards.”

Nit picking

There wasn’t much that displeased Padgett after his team beat Lejeune, but he still found something.

“We had a few touchdowns called back,” he said. “But a good team overcomes those kinds of things.”

The best

Lejeune coach Darryl Schwartz walked off the field at Lejeune High Athletics field with a greater respect for Southwest.

In fact, Schwartz said the Stallions are the best team he’s seen this season.

“Oh, yeah,” he said.

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